Cooking during an emergency.

[hennypenny9]

How? I'm just curious, because I've been reading in this forum on what people suggest storing. It's generally "store what you eat, eat what you store." And I understand this. But what I eat much of the time requires baking. So how would this happen if I had no usable oven? Is this something I need a special cookbook for? For example, bread. Or many stove top meals. Where I live currently I do not have any form of wood heat, outside or in. Would my gas oven or range work with no power? What if the gas is off?

Okay, sorry guys for all the questions. I just kinda hit a mental block. I mean, water, check! Shelter, check! Weird emergency food bars, check! But realistically, long term I would need to have a way to cook and I'm not seeing it at this point.

 

[tamlynn]

I consider our propane BBQ grill to be our emergency cooking appliance if our electricity and gas were off. It also has a burner on the side that can heat up a large pot. So we keep propane on hand. Oh, we also have a propane camp cookstove.

Charcoal grills are good as well.

 

[lupinfarm]

We have a large propane BBQ, a propane camping stove with tons of extra tanks (whatttt they were on sale!) and our proper house stove is propane, we can light the burners without the power on.

We are also able to burn in our fire pit without a permit in the winter months...

 

[big brown horse]

Hi HennyPenny!

Build a rocket stove. It only takes 16 fire bricks from Lowes...AND it burns hot using hardly any fuel.

 

[big brown horse]

http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2808 I had to go and look up the thread.


Thanks Ldychf, I am still planning on making one of my own soon.

 

[Wifezilla]

When the electricity was out here for two weeks, our gas grill was used a lot. I also have a Coleman camp stove. I didn't do any baking though. However I did make pancakes on a griddle on the Coleman.

 

[The Vail Benton's]

How? I'm just curious, because I've been reading in this forum on what people suggest storing. It's generally "store what you eat, eat what you store." And I understand this. But what I eat much of the time requires baking. So how would this happen if I had no usable oven? Is this something I need a special cookbook for? For example, bread. Or many stove top meals. Where I live currently I do not have any form of wood heat, outside or in. Would my gas oven or range work with no power? What if the gas is off?

Okay, sorry guys for all the questions. I just kinda hit a mental block. I mean, water, check! Shelter, check! Weird emergency food bars, check! But realistically, long term I would need to have a way to cook and I'm not seeing it at this point.

Hennypenny, get yourself a cast iron dutch oven. You can "bake" all kinds of good stuff in one of those: Bread, cake, main courses - I have a "Chuckwagon" cookbook and all the recipes are geared for using a dutch oven with a campfire(coals), but they work okay in a regular oven as well. I also have an old Boy Scout cookout cookbook that we use alot.
Of course, you will need a way to actually "cook" your food, but once you have a plan for that, you can still do some baking if you so choose.

 

[hennypenny9]

Thanks everyone! Wow, lots of ideas!

I don't have a bbq or grill, (since I hate most "grilling" and mostly like the traditional bbq "low and slow" style, but that's another story) but I can easily get a charcoal grill from my parents. My step-dad has accumulated a lot of them because he keeps upgrading. *cough He can't master them and gets mad cough*

But the rocket stove looks awesome, and easy, and well contained. We have a fire pit at the house I grew up in dug into the ground. I had the best salmon ever cooked in that pit. And that's saying something. So if I have a way to have a contained fire, I'm in suburbia remember, I can certainly produce a meal from it. The rocket stove would be easily assembled in an emergency, and not risk lighting my neighbor's house on fire.

Oh, dutch ovens! I forgot about those! See this is why I need this site. You're all so helpful.

 

[dacjohns]

Don't use charcoal indoors.

 

[freemotion]

There are some breads that can be cooked on a griddle, like English muffins, tortillas, naan, etc. Make 'em once or twice so you will know the method.

If I had to eat only what I could grow, flour products would probably be out of our diets....root veggies, instead, and corn, which is easier to grow here. I think.